The giant, disk-shaped world of Mesklin was an Earthman’s nightmare―so cold that the seas were liquid methane and the snow frozen ammonia, with crushing gravity up to 700 times that of Earth. No human being could explore Mesklin’s surface.

Yet―a desperately needed research rocket was down on Mesklin. Someone had to go after it. That someone was the strangest explorer ever to appear in science-fiction―the Mesklinite merchant seaman, Barlennan―fifteen inches long, thirty-six legs, weighing hundreds of pounds. And, as it turned out, the sharpest trader an Earthman ever met!

The Million Cities by J.T. McIntosh
Pyramid Books, 1963
Price I paid: none

THE MILLION CITIES

covered every inch of Earth’s surface with a gleaming metal skin—and penetrated almost to the planet’s core. Billions of people crowded them, using up the last depleted resources of an aging world. There was no hope for mankind but exploring and colonizing new frontiers beyond the sky.

The Chartists were the only people with the ability to build a spaceship—were within reach of success…

And then the government outlawed space travel—and began a vicious reign of terror against the Chartists!

The literally shattering climax of this fast-paced story by the author of One in Three Hundred offers a double surprise—for the Chartists are not what they seem….

started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed, and built what they needed to make it.

THE PLANET STRAPPERS got what they wanted—a start on the road to the stars—but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!

In THE PLANET STRAPPERS, Ray Gallun has written a story of the Day After Tomorrow—a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the space frontier—a story that some of us will be living some day….

Balzan of the Cat People #2: The Caves of Madness by Wallace Moore
Pyramid Books, 1975
Price I paid: 1¢ ($4.00 with shipping and handling)

Human castaway on a planet light years from earth,

Balzan had known many unearthly creatures in his alien home. The cat people had raised him and given him feline knowledge; the winged Aeri had adopted him; beautiful Ryla had loved him in spite of his naked, wingless shoulders.

Now Balzan was being held captive by another tribe of winged humanoids, living deep in underground caverns lighted only by glowing fungi. In this strange world where all women were the wives of all men, where no one was owner or owned, Balzan was plunged into terrifying adventure…with the slimy, gigantic night crawlers…with the most horrible monster of all, the fiendish Sl’yth!

There was trouble brewing on Mars—bad trouble. Two giant industrial empires fought for control there, and their struggle imperiled the whole Mars colony. Civil war—atomic civil war—could break out any second, leaving Earth’s only foothold in Space a mass of radioactive rubble.

But both antagonists were too politically powerful for the Colonization Board to take a direct hand. One man was needed to take charge—one man who could act fast and decisively, brutally if he had to.